[Athos]

In case anybody was still confused...........................

Sen. Marco Rubio, Republican, told reporters Congress will now need to CUT ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS.
Speaker Paul Ryan, Republican, told reporters he now wants to focus on ELIMINATING GOVERNMENT HANDOUTS.
Evil Trump, Republican, has said more than once he wants to concentrate on "WELFARE REFORM".

What's the best way to do these things? Pass a multi-TRILLION-dollar tax "cut"!

This has been the strategy of the right wing all along. In the guise of cutting taxes, STARVE THE GOVERNMENT OF REVENUES SO THE POOR AND NEEDY STARVE, SICKEN AND DIE BY DEFUNDING SOCIAL SECURITY, MEDICARE AND MEDICAID.

They have even eliminated charitable deductions so the NGOs will slowly wither on the vine.

EVIL TRUMP distracts with renewing conflict in the middle East with his Jerusalem fiasco. Reversing long-standing American policy, he cares nothing for those who will be injured and die by his war-mongering.

[smoothy]

Yeah. Another liberal Propaganda dissemination on on the Tax cut... when every other claim the Leftist media have made so far have been Proven to be lies.

Still believe Hillary is as Pure as the driven snow too? Maybe consult CNN...they are never right about ANYTHING.

[paraclete]

How do you connect the unconnected? Develop a conspiracy theory. It all a plot to get control of our welfare entitlements. Tax is what makes welfare possible, it also makes the military possible, but more than that borrowing money you never intend to pay back, otherwise known as theft, is another way. You are not raling about the borrowings, Athos, only about the possibility welfare might be reduced. The system is loaded against real change, so you don't have anything to worry about. Thing is, you don't really have entitlements, they are not enshrined in the Constitution. The founders thought you needed a gun to feed yourself, not a government handout. Generous to a fault

[Wondergirl]

Thing is, you don't really have entitlements, they are not enshrined in the Constitution. The founders thought you needed a gun to feed yourself, not a government handout. Generous to a fault

Social Security and Medicare are NOT entitlements, are NOT handouts. Thanks to both of those that we have been required to pay into since we were both 16 and working at our first real jobs, my husband and I are able to keep our heads above water. If SS and Medicare are taken away from us, it becomes out-and-out theft.

[talaniman]

The Trump tax cuts are a big scam, but it's hard to notice with all the scandals he has going on and no right wing loony is going to tell me that I am not entitled to SS or medicare after paying in for DECADES!

[joypulv]

Wow, you are all confused.
An entitlement is something you are entitled to. That includes SS and Medicare. It does not include MedicAID or any other welfare program, and I'm not going to list them all!

NOT ONE PENNY of the entitlements can be touched. The actual funds are in the General Fund so that they can earn interest from very safe instruments like BONDS. On paper, they cannot be touched, and all those rumors you hear are false, just because they used to each be in a separate physical place. ''Cuts'' don't refer to anything except reducing the payouts so that the funds don't run dry on all of us baby boomers and all of the bloated costs the medical care is costing.

Unfortunately one of the funds, SSDI, does sort of get 'touched' when it shouldn't. Some brilliant people wangled money out of it for disabled kids, a huge % of whom are just unruly in school, so the teacher sends him to the nurse who sends him to a doctor who declares him ADHD, gives him mind screwing drugs, and mom goes running home yelling with delight that her kid 'got his nut check,' usually 700/mo, which our FICA wasn't designed to pay for. So that fund IS dry.

[paraclete]

Social Security and Medicare are NOT entitlements, are NOT handouts. Thanks to both of those that we have been required to pay into since we were both 16 and working at our first real jobs, my husband and I are able to keep our heads above water. If SS and Medicare are taken away from us, it becomes out-and-out theft.

Yes if you have paid for it you should get it, but Social Security and Medicare, really isn't the issue, unless the recent tax cuts reduce payments to the ponzi scheme you rely on. What is the issue, as it is in many places, is other forms of welfare, the handouts to various groups because the government hasn't managed to create the great utopian dream of employment for life for all. Mind you, I doubt that was ever the dream in the United States

[paraclete]

Wow, you are all confused.
An entitlement is something you are entitled to. That includes SS and Medicare. It does not include MedicAID or any other welfare program, and I'm not going to list them all!

NOT ONE PENNY of the entitlements can be touched. The actual funds are in the General Fund so that they can earn interest from very safe instruments like BONDS. On paper, they cannot be touched, and all those rumors you hear are false, just because they used to each be in a separate physical place. ''Cuts'' don't refer to anything except reducing the payouts so that the funds don't run dry on all of us baby boomers and all of the bloated costs the medical care is costing.

Unfortunately one of the funds, SSDI, does sort of get 'touched' when it shouldn't. Some brilliant people wangled money out of it for disabled kids, a huge % of whom are just unruly in school, so the teacher sends him to the nurse who sends him to a doctor who declares him ADHD, gives him mind screwing drugs, and mom goes running home yelling with delight that her kid 'got his nut check,' usually 700/mo, which our FICA wasn't designed to pay for. So that fund IS dry.

I don't think anyone is confused, there is undoubtedly a scheme to modify or discontinue certain programs, politicians do this all the time, the government giveth and the government taketh away. It is part of assuming the god like qualities of elected office. Think of it as priorities, some people think money should be poured in ADHD when the old remedy of a little disciple and less sugar would do much more, the same goes for obesity, exactly the same remedy, but the industries that fuel the problems are sacrosanct

[joypulv]

Everyone here is confused. Including you. First you say 'It all a plot to get control of our welfare entitlements' when welfare is not an entitlement. Then you say 'other forms of welfare' after SS and Medicare. Welfare is welfare, and those 2 are NOT.
Athos is confused by stringing the real entitlements together with welfare.
Even Wondergirl the wordsmith has 'entitlements' backwards!

Some kids do have ADHD but that's not really my issue. I don't want ANY of my lifelong payroll taxes and SE taxes being given to kids. Kids have all sorts of welfare programs available, and they don't need a big fat paycheck. The disability part of our FICA is for us, not our kids. Like I said, it's the first part of the SS fund to go to zero. The main part remains retirement. The second part should be for our own adult disability only, SSDI. If we didn't work enough and get disabled, we go on SSI, the welfare disability, in whole or in part. Few people get all that straight.

The Medicare fund is full but is depleting too fast, thanks to boomers, and living too long past retirement. To top that all off, the medical establishment decided some time ago that the solution to so many people not paying for their care was to jack up prices into the stratosphere. So each year of my retirement sees new cutbacks to coverage (that is NOT the same as cutbacks to the FUNDS). Those ads you see for 'Medicare pays 80% and you pay 20%' are a flat out LIE, and if you actually read the fine print of the book they send you, you will see the qualifiers throughout it. So along comes a bunch of WELFARE programs to add to Medicare. I have one myself, an 'Advantage Plan.' It covers a bit of what Medicare doesn't. If I paid a premium, I could get more. If I paid through the nose, I could get a 'Supplemental Plan,' which would cover everything.

When I go to doctors (seldom), no one knows what to do with my coverage. They are used to all seniors having EITHER Medicaid (welfare) in addition to Medicare, or a Supplemental Plan (often paid for by company retirement plans). In other words, full coverage. I don't. I have the cheapest Advantage Plan, costing me zero. Covers practically nothing.

If you want to call the idea of SS and Medicare, our work insurance plan fund, being sold as bonds and T-bills to earn piddly interest, to be a Ponzi scheme, feel free. It hasn't fallen yet. No fund is being robbed to fund another. It's a pervasive, persistent false rumor.
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/investheld.html

Lastly, paraclete, did you move from NSW to the US? You say 'our entitlements.' Not being snarky, just curious.

[talaniman]

Don't expect those right wing conservative types to understand that government has a duty to help it's own people in times of need (Welfare, medicaid, SSI,) mostly women and children because the only argument they have is that such people who need help are lazy bums. Then they lump ALL programs that help people into one neat category to justify label it as evil and totally unnecessary. Then they tell you who deserves what and rich guys deserve it all.

Want to make America great again? Take care of the least in our society. Women, children, and old people, the sick and displaced. Righties don't believe in that kind of stuff, and the Trump Tax Bill proves it beyond a doubt. They trust rich guys to do the right thing when that's never been proved in history they ever would unless you MAKE them.

I mean Trump came on national TV and said his rich friends would hate him, and he would not benefit from this tax cut. An OBVIOUS bald face LIE!

[Wondergirl]

Even Wondergirl the wordsmith has 'entitlements' backwards!

That word has acquired a pejorative meaning, as an undeserved government handout. That's the meaning I was arguing about.

[joypulv]

Wondergirl, I refuse to cave.

[talaniman]

What's to cave about since they are ALL government programs designed to help people who have a need for them. The disgust is not having the willingness to help those in need, badmouthing them to justify cutting them off the government TEAT, or dole, and then giving MORE to those that don't need it! A clear case of legalized stealing to the corporate god they worship. Most are as poor as church mice too!

I blame the government for this inequity, and the ideological idiocy by the electorate. I ain't caving on that either, nor am I confused by the rhetorical semantics of right wing loonies! I mean how can you feel good about teaching a man to fish, and then won't let him fish at a pond that actually has fish in it?

Not the end of this rant... I'm just getting started! :o

[Wondergirl]

Wondergirl, I refuse to cave.

I'm not asking you to. I know what it's supposed to mean, but the term has been twisted (not by you). I'm on your team, joypulv!

[Athos]

Athos is confused by stringing the real entitlements together with welfare.

Athos is nothing of the sort. I QUOTED others - the language is theirs.

In any case, you are missing the forest for the trees. Don't key on semantics - try to understand the point. If you remain confused after another reading, go to Talaniman and read what he writes. He lays it out in plain language and makes the point better than I did.

[joypulv]

I'm a bleeding heart conservative.
I'm not going to go on and on about my personal knowledge of abuses of all the welfare programs.
They are needed, but people act like idiots.
One glaring example was the CEO of Panera making a big show of eating on 4.20 a day for a month. He said that was the Food STamp amount. There is no 'amount' - it goes by income and other variables, and 4.20 at the time was what you got if you had a low paying full time job, and they are NEVER intended to be the entire food budget, but everyone acts like it is. I live on LESS, very well too, than friends of mine who have nothing but welfare or SSDI and food stamps.

[joypulv]

Find me a quote, Athos. Rubio said, "The driver of our debt is the structure of Social Security and Medicare for future beneficiaries." His talk was of STRUCTURAL changes such as the rate and age of Social Security and Medicare payouts. This is nothing new, as we all well know. The retirement age has already risen as has the payout.
Yes, Wondergirl, I know we agree. I just see this whole Breitbart vocabulary taking over and we don't have to let it!

AGAIN, THE FUNDS THEMSELVES CANNOT BE 'CUT' BY LAW AND NO ONE IS TRYING TO DO SO!!!!!!!!!

[talaniman]

I wouldn't put it past the current congress to change the law for FUTURE generations.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.c4474fd17557

While whipping votes for the tax bill, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) attacked “liberal programs” for the poor and said Congress needed to stop wasting Americans' money.

Now what kind of structural reforms could they mean?

[joypulv]

Structural reform of ss and medicare!!!!

Face it. It's going to happen because it has to happen. Just living too long ALONE is going to force it!

[paraclete]

It is a sensible reform that if people are living longer healthier and productive lives that access to benefits might be delayed to an older age. Just to play the devil's advocate and borrow from arguments in other places; when these programs were developed people didn't live so long, but average life span has risen and general health and health services have improved. Rather than being worn out by a life of hard labour people are healthy well into their seventies and eighties. These schemes were not designed with that population in mind